by Eva Devon
“How could you not?” he scoffed. “Did you truly think I was a servant? If you did, you must be rather dim.”
The heat of debate flared in her chest. She had to stand up for herself, even to a formidable duke; if she didn’t, then who would? “I am not dim at all. I am just inexperienced with society. I try to avoid it as much as possible.”
“Yet you are to be a duchess now. It is a catastrophe. You,” he emphasized, though his tone wasn’t irate. It seemed more like he was schooling her. “A duchess. A miss of little importance from some country town.”
“Now,” she huffed, “that is going too far, Your Grace. I may be a miss and I may be from a country town, but I am neither dim nor an incapable person.”
His words were pointed, direct, and rather off-putting. Was he usually so rude? She granted this was a unique event and hoped that explained his terse nature and willingness to look down upon her with so much superiority, duke or not.
“Incapable of being a duchess,” he corrected, his voice a shockingly deep rumble. “But worry not. I’ll have you trained up, and all will be well.”
“Trained up?” she echoed, nearly choking on her words. Georgiana gave him a withering stare and countered, “I am not a dog, Your Grace.”
“My dog is obedient and causes me a great deal of happiness. So we can agree on that point. You, Miss Bly, are not a dog.”
She gasped. It was all she could do not to yank her hands from his, turn and leave him standing alone on the dance floor. Perhaps it was what she should have done. The only thing that kept her from storming off in high dudgeon was the thought of her family, and especially her sister Elizabeth’s prospects.
“You are an utter boor,” she hissed.
“And you have ruined my life,” he returned, with a mocking inclination of his head.
“I am sorry,” she said, her heart thudding wildly in her chest. This moment warranted apology, but she bloody well needed him to understand the stakes of all this was not just about him.
“I beg your pardon?” He stared down at her, agog.
Quickly, he arced her under his arms, guiding her in a circling motion, and then back again.
“I am sorry for ruining your life,” she repeated, trying not to trip over her own slippered toes as she turned. “But I’ll have you know, mine has been ruined as well. I have no desire to be a duchess. It seems like a terrible life.”
“You don’t wish to be a duchess?” he challenged. “And yet you waited alone in my room and had the audacity to allow me to kiss you.”
“You admit that you kissed me,” she rushed, wishing she could throw her hands up in frustration. Alas, whilst engaged in the dance that never seemed to end, she could not. “And I truly didn’t know it was your room. I haven’t a mercenary bone in my body. So the only question that remains is why did you do it?”
He looked away.
“Your Grace?” she prompted, surprised by his response. She had expected more anger, more mockery. Not this moment’s retreat.
“There was something terribly inviting about your person,” he snapped, as if annoyed by his answer.
The words tumbled over her, surprising her as much as his kiss had. He’d desired her? She was not usually men’s focus. And she did not mind, but he… He’d brought something to life within her she’d scarce known existed.
She’d quite liked it, until it had all gone terribly wrong
“It wasn’t only about shunting me out of your room?” she asked.
“It was both,” he admitted, looking and sounding perplexed. “I wanted you to leave and I wanted you to stay.”
“A contradiction,” she said.
A look of surprise crossed his handsome face as he turned them slowly, arranging their hands so that they gently clasped above her head, which only emphasized the difference in their height.
“I’m not limited to ribbons and lace,” she replied tartly. Why did so many men seem shocked by her vocabulary?
The look that crossed his face was not dismay but intrigue. Then it vanished as quickly as it had arrived.
“Well, that’s heartening,” he drawled. “At least you shall be interested in the educations of our children.”
Oh my… The mere idea of their children and the getting of said children had her gobsmacked. “Your Grace, are you usually so glib?”
He looked at her as if she’d gone absolutely mad as he lowered their hands and placed his palm to her upper back. “No one has ever asked such a thing of me before.”
“Well, it was about time. As I’m not one of the ladies you seem so terribly accustomed to, I suppose I shall say things which surprise you often.”
“Well,” he all but growled. “At least you won’t bore me to death. Not that we need to speak often.”
“No?” What the botheration was he on about now?
“Married couples don’t need to speak at all.” His brow furrowed as he studied her face. “All that married couples need do is produce an heir.”
She stumbled against him at the actual mention of the creation of an heir, and the idea that they might never speak. Not even when they were—
As he hauled her back up, she sucked in a steadying breath. “But don’t you think that producing an heir might be made easier with some conversation?”
“No,” he countered, his hands more firm now, guiding her about the room. “Talking might make things worse.”
She blinked, completely at a loss. For what did she know about it, anyway? She’d never been with a man before, and now, with him holding her so close, she wondered what it would be like, and what it would be like with him. “Indeed,” she said absently, her mind awhirl.
“I find young ladies and talking do not go well together,” he said.
That snapped her back to her senses. The statement was so simple and so declarative she was tempted to brain him, even if he was a duke.
“My goodness, you really are pompous, aren’t you? But you kiss rather well,” she said, determined to find something good about her future husband. She was in a sea of potential despair; she had to find one thing to keep her afloat. It seemed it was their kiss.
Something changed in his gaze then, as if he was thinking of their kiss and the kisses they would share when married. The coldness seemed to slip from him and his eyes sparked with flame.
“You’re very strange, Miss Bly,” he said softly.
“No stranger than you are.” A rueful smile pulled at her lips.
“I doubt that very much. I’m far stranger.”
“Are you?” she asked, astonished he’d make such an admission.
“Oh yes. I’ve grown accustomed to it, you see. The world has grown accustomed to it, too. And no doubt, as my intended, you shall hear all about it soon.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’d already heard that you were a bit cold. Your reputation precedes you, you know, but you weren’t cold at all. There was nothing about you that was cold.” At the memory of his kiss, her lips parted. “You were actually quite fiery.”
He gaped at her. “Fiery?”
“Yes,” she whispered, rather happy she could cause such consternation in him. “As in passionate.”
“I understood, thank you very much.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not fiery at all, though. I must maintain distance.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s what I do.”
“That sounds very hard.” She might not be particularly adept in society, but she wasn’t distant from people, especially her family. She couldn’t imagine the loneliness of it.
“It serves me well,” he said tightly.
“Why?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“Because people always wish something from a duke…just like you.”
“I did not wish anything,” she exclaimed before she realized she’d ver
y nearly shouted. She forced herself to continue quietly. “You were the one who—”
“Yes, yes, we’ve already crossed this ground. But you never should have been in my library in the first place.”
She scowled. “You did not have a sign upon it that said it was your private library. Enter at your own risk. Trespassers shall be kissed on sight.”
He groaned. “Is this to be the same as the debate about the chair?”
“The chair did not have your name upon it,” she said, realizing she was growing heated. “The library did not have your name upon it.”
“The house has my name upon it. This is my house in its entirety.”
“And,” she pointed out, refusing to be daunted, “there are people all over it and only one duke. You didn’t think it possible someone might mistake your identity, dressed as you were? What kind of duke wears muddy, worn breeches and expects one to know he’s lord of the castle?”
He blew out a weary breath. “You are going to be a great deal of trouble.”
“It’s not my intention,” she said but did not bother to correct him. Many people found her difficult. It was not her fault she was born to be so ill-fitted for the confines of society. “I shall just find a little nook in your library once we are wed, and you’ll never know I’m here.”
“That’s not possible for a duchess, Miss Bly. Duchesses don’t hide in quiet corners,” he said so softly his voice sounded like hot whiskey on a winter’s eve. “They rule the room.”
She swallowed at the horrifying thought.
Rule the room? She was used to being a wallflower.
The music came to a stop. He pulled her close as he ceased his masterful circling. The room seemed to continue to spin as conversation buzzed about them combined with the excited applause of the dancers.
The duke—her future husband—glared down at her and shook his head. “This marriage is going to be a disaster.”
“Yes,” she agreed without hesitation. “It is.”
Chapter Five
“Your Grace, Your Grace,” a deep Yorkshire voice that sounded like it might belong to a rather jolly St. Nicholas filled Edward’s ear and half the refreshment room. “What a pleasure it is to meet you.”
Miss Bly, who had had the bravery to introduce him to her family after their dance, nervously darted glances at her father and then to Edward…then back to her father. Mr. Bly was apparently unaware of his daughter’s concern.
Edward winced inwardly and did his best to keep his face implacable.
Oh dear God, was this to be his father-in-law?
Mr. Bly all but bounced on his heels as he vigorously pumped Edward’s arm up and down. “A pleasure to meet you, Your Grace,” he repeated, “a pleasure indeed.”
Edward did not reply that he wished he could say the same.
It was perhaps a bridge too far to state he had to resist the urge to recoil at Mr. Bly’s enthusiasm. One likely shouldn’t show such feelings to their future father-in-law.
But the man all but bubbled.
Mr. Bly was an overenthusiastic spaniel of a person.
Edward did not generally endure spaniel-type people. No, he preferred quiet, stoic individuals. But he would somehow have to persevere. At least he would not have to invite the man to his house often, surely. Perhaps he would be very lucky in that Georgiana did not feel a particular closeness to her family. Perhaps she’d be relieved to not be too close to them.
His favorite house was fifty miles from the ducal estate. He and Georgiana could live there, if necessary. Then he would only have to bear her family upon occasion.
When they did come to stay, because unwanted family always did, he could put them in rooms in the opposite wing from his own.
Several of Edward’s guests stared as they collected glasses of wine. Oh, they tried to appear nonchalant, but the sheer absurdity of the evening was leading to blatant eavesdropping. Edward ignored them all.
“Your daughter is most…unique,” Edward said.
Because he had to say something about her, after all.
And if he was going to paint a picture that their marriage was not entirely the result of a disastrous encounter in his library, he had to make it seem as if he esteemed Georgiana to some degree.
He’d already surmised she was an absolute blue-stocking terror, which on its own was no ill thing. But her lack of understanding of how society worked? That was the last thing he’d wished for in a duchess. If and when he’d married, he’d planned on choosing someone he had to give little assistance or notice to.
But it was too late to go back now, and he would never be a cad or a bounder. Edward could not face himself in the proverbial mirror or endure his own self-recriminations if he abandoned her.
But alliance with the Blys would prove a challenge.
“This is my wife, Mrs. Bly,” Mr. Bly enthused, gesturing with a flourish of his wrist to the rather dignified and handsome woman standing beside him.
Heretofore, she had been silent.
Edward turned to his future mother-in-law, curious and wary. Dressed simply in a rose-hued frock, her silver-tinged dark hair coiled atop her head, Mrs. Bly took him in. Her sparkling blue eyes swept quickly from the top of his head to his polished dancing shoes.
She was entirely different from her husband. She did not bounce.
No, there was a calmness to her, a steel like the finest forged Spanish blade. This was the temperament that had shaped Georgiana’s formidable spine. He knew that immediately.
She held out her hand. “How do you do, Your Grace?”
“I do as well as one can in such a circumstance,” he said.
He could feel the eyes of the multitudes staring at them. He ground his teeth together at the discomfort it always caused him to be firmly at the center of attention.
“You do not care for company?” Mrs. Bly offered, rather optimistically considering her daughter had trapped him into matrimony.
“No,” he said, “I do not care for company. But I’m sure my reputation precedes me.”
“Oh, indeed, it does, Your Grace. It is well renowned, the fact that you are not overly zealous about these affairs.” Mrs. Bly cocked her head to the side, considering him, as her husband’s brow furrowed, swinging his gaze back and forth like an eager audience member at a cricket match.
“And yet you must hold them,” Mrs. Bly concluded.
“Indeed, I must.” Edward smiled tightly, unable to relax, though he found himself at least not appalled by his future mother-in-law. “And now your daughter will be so lucky as to hold them and proceed over them. No doubt, such a thing has been at the forefront of her desires.”
At that, Mrs. Bly’s smile seemed to wane into worry. “Georgiana has never esteemed such events. Nor has she been led to expect she would one day oversee them. I do hope you shall be a kind guide to her so that she may learn how to be a suitable hostess.”
Was this the truth, then? Georgiana was not feigning her lack of ability in polite society?
She had been such a remarkable firebrand in his library that he assumed she was liked wherever she went, but it seemed it was not true. Her protestations of awkwardness in company seemed supported by her mother—a mother who did not seem prone to exaggeration.
And as he studied Miss Bly now, he realized she did seem quite uncomfortable standing by her mother as the entire room watched them. He had attributed her ill ease to the fact that she had nearly been ruined, but now he wondered if perhaps she truly did loathe polite company as he did.
It was something which piqued his interest, and something he would have to pursue.
But right now, he could think only that this was a family he was going to be latched to for the rest of his life. Though the mother was not a lost cause, the father…
He dared not think of it too long. What were the other daug
hters like? They certainly had little standing from the state of their dress.
He had nothing against tradespeople, but they generally did not marry into his class.
It was all he could do not to groan.
As Edward contemplated Mr. Bly, Mrs. Bly, and Georgiana, their clothes, their speech, and her father’s quite questionable manners, it felt as if he had been thrust into a horrific novel, where his life and everything he’d so painfully worked for was about to come undone.
Chapter Six
A summons had come from the duke and Georgiana had answered.
It mattered not that perhaps only twelve hours had passed since the announcement of their marriage, her lessons were to begin without delay.
And as she looked anew upon his home, she understood why he wished to begin at once. In the light of day, Thornfield Castle only impressed Georgiana more than it had by torchlight the night before. It sprawled like a mammoth beast across the wild hillside. The towering limestone was most impressive.
It was truly a castle in every sense of the word. There was no question. It was not like the great houses that so many had seen built since the time of Queen Elizabeth I, houses meant to impress for the sake of impressing.
No, this house had been meant to show might and power, to defend against invaders, and secure the landscape. It was not even a house, per se. To call it such was an insult to the place.
It was a fortress. A magnificent dwelling!
Georgiana was positively thrilled. For it was clear that vast amounts of history had occurred in this place. Hundreds and hundreds of years of it.
She gazed in wonder.
And she was going to be mistress here.
It was a remarkable thought, almost impossible to take in, but that was the truth. She was going to be mistress of all of this in the very near future.
A castle!
A castle that had sat upon the wild Yorkshire dales for centuries and seen the turning tides of armies and kings. Could she do it? She had no choice, did she?
She was going to be the Duchess of Thornfield, and there it was.
